I don’t believe that raising the eligibility question should be held in abeyance because the nation elected a community organizer with thuggish friends.
IF the SCOTUS were to accept one of the eligibility challenges, and IF they interpreted the “Natural Born citizen” language in a way to exclude that community organizer, the process would be slow, affording the public time to look at the question and its significance, and to anticipate the possibility of the unseating. In that case, I believe public opinion more than any court would force a resignation rather than any legal proceedings. I don’t believe the reaction would be quite so severe as you envision.
I’ve lived through two related events: The SCOTUS ruled that Nixon had to reveal his previously secret tapes to the Congressional committee investigating Watergate. Their ruling didn’t force him from office, but by forcing him to put out publicly those tapes, it greased the skids for a change in public opinion, and Congressional Republicans persuaded him to resign.
The other event was the riots in DC following the MLK assassination. It was horrible. But, it ended. And the rebuilding took place. The country moved on. The burned out corridor of 1968 is a ‘hip’ place today. Unfortunately, nothing was done to change the mob mentality. So they and their spiritual heirs are still with us. There could possibly be a reprise. We’d survive it.
The Framers set out a brilliant plan of government to survive damned near anything except apathy. The test, as Franklin said, is “if we can keep it.” What we can’t survive is undermining our Constitution and the rule of law, regardless of who does it, and regardless of how mobs might take to the Constitution being enforced.
Some would incite violence by insisting this was done only because the community organizer is (half)black. Forget that any such ruling would affect anyone whose French or Italian bio-father was in the US briefly on a student visa and knocked up (as it were) a young American girl. And forget that this community organizer has nothing in his background remotely similar to 99% of African Americans. His family has no slavery history; both parents were Ph.D.’s; he went to the best schools; he was raised as a middle class kid, no different from many others of all races who lived in HI at the time. Cooler heads would ultimately prevail.
IMO, the street mobs scenario is be far more likely with a continuing downward spiral of the economy than unseating the community organizer, if it came to that.
[I don’t believe that raising the eligibility question should be held in abeyance because the nation elected a community organizer with thuggish friends.]
Actually, I don’t think it should be held in abeyance either. Several states have already started to institute laws concerning this issue. IMO, this is a good idea.
[What we can’t survive is undermining our Constitution and the rule of law, regardless of who does it, and regardless of how mobs might take to the Constitution being enforced.]
Looking at who is currently holding the top job of law enforcement in our country, the rule of law has been set aside in deference to their cause.
The coming months leading up to 2012 election are going to very telling whether we are going to maintain our Republic or not.